This morning, on the way to the gym, we saw a crow dive into the tall grass beside the trail and grab a very tiny baby rabbit by the ears in its beak. The crow was having a little trouble with lift, and the rabbit was screaming (rabbits scream. This is not a fiction from Watership Down, but a shrill and disturbing truth).
I, torn between admiration of corvids and sympathy for tiny bunnies, slapped my hand over my mouth and stood there expecting to see the crow drop the bunny, stab it with its beak, and have a brutal breakfast. Nature's mean, man.
Instead, the crow lost altitude and landed and dropped the bunny...
...who tried to run...
...and got grabbed again, and lifted....
...and got dropped again, and tried to run...
...all the while screaming...
...and at that point I had enough. The crow had the bunny pinned, by the ears, and clearly couldn't hold it down long enough to stab it. (The crow was giving off wtf, man, I thought this was a mouse, this is not a fucking mouse! vibes.) So I ran at the crow, who prudently abandoned its screaming, thrashing victim, who--unharmed? or at least not bleeding--ran at me (or rather, away from the crow), and then jagged into the grass and hopefully from there back underground or under some bushes, where crows cannot go.
And that is how I pissed off the crows in the neighborhood (again. Last time I rescued a frog).
